“Are there any men in the house, Shelton? Quick, don’t waste time.”
The maid stared at the haggard girl before her as though in this strange figure she could hardly recognise the cool and graceful Miss Forrest of normal life.
“What’s come to you, miss?” she asked, without replying to the question.
“Mr. Shandon’s been murdered. Is Mr. Stenness here, or Mr. Hawkhurst? Or anyone else? Go and find them immediately, if they’re anywhere about.”
Then, as the girl still seemed dazed by the news:
“Can’t you do as I tell you? Hurry! There’s no time to lose.”
A picture rose in her mind of the murderer returning to the Maze and coming upon the defenceless Howard. Unlikely, of course, but after this afternoon she would be slow to call anything unlikely. The maid’s slowness irritated her overwrought nerves.
“Will you go?”
But by this time the idea of murder had penetrated the dull mind of Shelton and produced a reaction which Vera had not foreseen.
“Mr. Shandon murdered, and the man creeping about the place! I’d never dare to go out of this room, miss. He might be in the hall now, waiting for me. Oh, oh!”